Hanover football's Will Bruna re-writes Eight-Man record books

Wednesday

Nov 18, 2015 at 2:35 PM

Brent Maycock

HANOVER — As modest as the goal seemed, it really was a pretty lofty one in the mind of Hanover junior Will Bruna.

After all, it’s not easy to step in and replace your older brother as starting quarterback for one of the top eight-man programs in the state. And certainly not after Andrew Bruna led the Wildcats to the Division I state championship game while throwing for 1,906 yards and 36 touchdowns and rushing for another 813 yards and 25 touchdowns.

"That’s what I was mainly worried about, filling his shoes," Will Bruna said.

Not only has Bruna capably done that, he’s far exceeded the numbers his older brother put up a year ago. In fact, Bruna has enjoyed a statistical season no eight-man player in state history has ever accomplished.

When Bruna steps onto Newton’s Fischer Field for Saturday’s 11 a.m. Eight-Man Division I state championship showdown between No. 1 Hanover (12-0) and No. 2 Spearville (12-0), he’ll do so as the state’s single-season record holder for passing yards and touchdowns.

Through 12 games, Bruna has thrown for 3,268 yards and 56 touchdowns, obliterating the old records of 2,837 yards, set by White City’s Michael Hammersmith in 2000, and 52 touchdowns, set by Central-Burden’s Bo Savage in 2010.

"It’s not something I ever considered doing," Bruna said of setting the state records. "I had no idea I was even close until there was an article about it midway through the season. But right now, it doesn’t mean a whole lot — we’re just focused on winning a state title right now. At the end of the season, we’ll be able to look back on it and what we accomplished this year."

Hanover began the 2015 season with zero starters back from last year’s offense which averaged 371 yards per game. Zero.

Bruna managed 450 yards of total offense in mop-up duty and the rest of the returning Wildcats combined for 171 yards rushing and 142 yards receiving. Hardly numbers to indicate a record-setting offensive season was in the works for this season.

At the same time, however, Wildcat coach Matt Heuer knew he had something special at his disposal.

"Coming into the season, we knew were going to have to switch offenses to fit our personnel better and it was kind of a learning process for everybody early on," Heuer said. "We knew Will had the characteristics to be a great leader and to facilitate our offense and had some good players around him. That’s really helped him and he does a really good job reading defenses and putting the ball where it needs to go.

"We knew we could be pretty good. But to this extent? No, we had no idea we’d have this kind of success."

A big part of the success can be attributed to Bruna himself. As the seventh of eight boys in his family, he’s been surrounded his entire life by older brothers pushing him to get better every step of the way.

That internal drive has led to qualities that made Bruna a natural to step in and feel comfortable in the spotlight right away. That much was evident early and became even clearer when last year, as a sophomore, he was the leading scorer on Hanover’s senior-dominated Class 1A Division I state basketball championship team.

"We knew from a very young age, seeing it in junior high, you saw he had the leadership capabilities," Heuer said. "The kids looked up to him and he had great charisma and when he’s on the field, he’s someone everyone can look to because he’s that stable force."

His teammates agree.

"His leadership, he’s one of our biggest leaders as a junior," said senior receiver Trey Lohse, who served as the Wildcats’ backup quarterback early in his career before changing positions. "It’s really impressive how he’s stepped up this year after not really playing much on offense last year."

Lohse is one of four dangerous weapons who have made Bruna’s debut season run smoothly. Fellow seniors Devin Jueneman and Matthew White and junior Adam Zarybnicky have teamed with Lohse to give Bruna a skilled arsenal to work with, each capable of being a go-to guy when the situation calls for it.

"These guys make it extremely easy for me," Bruna said. "Many times I’ll make a bad throw or poor read and they bail me out with a great play. I can trust every single one of them to make a good play and that just makes my job really easy. Each one of them has a certain strength, but they’re all equally good."

The stats suggest as much. Lohse leads the pack with 68 catches for 1,182 yards and 24 touchdowns, his touchdown total just five off the state record of 29 set by McCracken’s Kellye Irvin in 1979.

But Jueneman has 49 catches for 636 yards and 11 touchdowns, Zarybnicky has 46 grabs for 591 yards and nine scores and White has 32 catches for 663 yards and nine touchdowns. Bruna has completed 76.4 percent of his passes (204 of 267) and thrown just four interceptions.

"I think we take pride in it," Lohse said of the records. "We’ve got a great quarterback who can get us the ball in space and his timing is perfect. We practice hard each day to get into spaces where he can get us the ball. We know if we can get open, he’s going to get us the ball where we need it."

It didn’t take long for the pieces to fit together. In Hanover’s season opener against an Axtell team that reached the Division II semifinals, Bruna threw for 328 yards and five touchdowns. He followed with 311 yards against Frankfort and has topped the 300-yard mark two other times — 366 vs. Osborne and 373 against West Elk in the quarterfinals when he broke the yardage record.

He’s failed to throw for at least 240 yards just once and at least four touchdowns just twice. His best game arguably was against Osborne when he completed 16 of 17 passes for 366 yards and seven touchdowns.

Oh, and he’s also Hanover’s leading rusher with 613 yards and 16 touchdowns.

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